Former Argentine president De la Rua charged in bribery scandal

[Judi Lynn]

Source: International Herald Tribune/Associated Press

Former Argentine president De la Rua charged in bribery scandal
The Associated Press
Published: February 26, 2008


BUENOS AIRES, Argentina: Former Argentine President Fernando de la Rua was charged with bribery Monday in connection to an alleged scheme to buy support from senators a year before his government collapsed, a court official said.

De la Rua, who governed Argentina from 1999 until December 2001, has repeatedly denied any involvement in an alleged bid by his aides to push labor reforms through Congress by giving senators millions of dollars. The scandal prompted his vice president to abruptly resign.

Judge Daniel Rafecas charged De la Rua with "aggravated bribery" on Monday, but the former president will remain free while his case is being processed, said a court official who declined to be named in line with court policy. The charges were also reported on the Web site of leading Argentine newspaper Clarin.

Confidence in De la Rua's government plunged with the accusations amid a run-up to the country's spectacular December 2001 economic implosion, which forced De la Rua to step down halfway through his four year term.



Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/02/26/news/Argentina-Ex-President.php

[Judi Lynn]

1. Argentine ex-president charged

Argentine ex-president charged

A federal court in Argentina has charged former President Fernando de la Rua with "aggravated bribery".
The charge relates to an alleged scheme to buy political backing from senators a year before his government collapsed in 2001, a court official said.

He is accused of bribing senators with millions of dollars in an attempt to push labour reforms through Congress.

Mr De la Rua, who governed Argentina from 1999 until December 2001, has steadfastly protested his innocence.
The former president will remain free pending trial, but the court ordered 500,000 pesos ($157,500) of his assets to be frozen.

He faces up to six years in prison if convicted.

Mr de la Rua is already being investigated for the part he allegedly played in the killing of five people during riots in 2001.

He fled the presidential palace shortly after the deaths as a severe economic, social and political crisis gripped the country.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7264154.stm

http://www.whitehouse.gov.nyud.net:8090/president/100days/400-P2212-06-15.jpg

_{George W. Bush} flanked by Fernando de la Rua, on his left, and Panama's former President Mireya Moscoso, who pardoned bomber/mass murderer/terrorist, Cuban "exile" Luis Posada Carriles, and phoned Miami's right-wing extremists to tell them she had "sprung" him and his cohorts, and immediately retired to Miami, herself, where THEY BOTH LIVE, since _Bush/s Justice Department also dropped charages pending against him, as well.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Little known fact about Bush Buddy Moscoso: she's immune from prosecution!

Gómez asks high court to lift 10 legislators' immunity

by Eric Jackson, mainly from other media

Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez has petitioned the Supreme Court to lift the immunity from investigation and prosecution of nine members of the National Assembly and one member of the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN). The latter is no obscure deputy in a regional body that does little of substance, but former President Mireya Moscoso herself.

Gómez wants to investigate Moscoso on two complaints of pilfering public funds, one in relation to the diversion of some $72 million in aid from Taiwan to a private foundation that she and her friends and relatives set up and from which large "administrative salaries" were extracted, and one about the more than $1000 per day in public funds that Mireya used to buy herself clothing and jewelry over the course of her five-year presidency.

As a former president, Moscoso has the legal right to a seat in PARLACEN, which carries with it immunity from investigation and prosecution. When she first left office in September of 2004, auditors began to uncover a tangle of peculation and financial abuses by the ex-president, her sister Ruby Moscoso de Young (who served as Mireya's "first lady") and other members of her inner circle. As these complaints were being forwarded to prosecutors, Moscoso belatedly was sworn in as a PARLACEN member. Although she doesn't attend the regional body's meetings, she does have the same immunity that deputies who actually show up for the job enjoy.

More:
http://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_11/issue_24/news_01.html